2003 at a glance: Prognosticators present their predictions

By Maryann Tripp, Assistant Site Editor 07 Jan 2003 | SearchStorage.com

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Once again predictions were coming in from all over the storage globe. Our editors had a thing or two to say about what 2003 will bring as did our SearchStorage.com experts and other industry analysts. We then compiled all these predictions right here for your ease and reading enjoyment.

But, before you take a look at the 2003 predictions, take a look at what was predicted for 2002 and see how close the pundits got to what really happened.

As you read along, you may or may not agree with our predictions and maybe you have a few of your own. Either way we'd be interested to hear from you. You can reply to me or you can post it right in our Sound Off discussion forum and get everyone involved.

We asked our experts to give us their take on where storage is headed in general and in particular, their area of expertise. We're sure you'll find this look ahead enlightening and interesting as only predictions can be!

Prediction highlights from our Ask the Expert panel:

Security expert Vijay Ahuja says we'll see CIOs focusing on the bottom line vs. new features or enhancements. Cyber attacks will continue hot and heavy and there will be no magic bullet for security. See Vijay's predictions.

Storage management expert Bruce Backa sees players and products in the storage market sorting themselves out, centralized remote storage pushing infrastructure upgrades and the use of tape for non-archival backups in large organizations will start to decline. See Bruce's predictions.

Storage administration expert Jim Booth takes us back to his 2002 predictions to see what he hit and what he missed. You be the judge. As for 2003, he predicts simplicity with senior IT management pushing back on business units and deploying more consolidated storage networks and IP SAN technology becoming standard practice by year's end. See Jim's predictions.

NAS expert Randy Kerns looks at enterprise data center customers in the U.S. starting to deploy new or more robust disaster recovery solutions and more products coming to the market that address the consolidation of NAS devices. See Randy's predictions.

Consolidation/data management expert Joel Lovell believes virtualization will gain wider acceptance, disaster recovery of IP will gain momentum and CRM/SRM will become more critical for business decision making. See Joel's predictions.

High availability expert Evan Marcus says that for storage in general, it looks like 2003 will be a good one for commodity storage hardware companies. For high availability specifically, blade servers will see wider deployment in critical production environments. See Evan's predictions.

SAN expert Chris Poelker cuts through the mist and has a lot to say about what's to come in 2003. The differences between SAN and NAS will continue to blur, rules-based storage management takes hold and storage will become more application focused. See Chris' predictions.

A to Z networking expert Marc Farley sees storage integration opportunities for those on the ball and software clarification for managers and administrators. See Marc's predictions.

Prediction highlights from other industry experts and analysts:

Yankee Group's Jamie Gruener predicts IT spending to remain flat, with a few exceptions of course, and Cisco will take a sizable chunk of Fibre Channel switch market share. See Jamie's predictions,

SearchStorage.com site editor Mark Lewis put on his prognosticator's cap and sees continuing storage management woes, iSCSI gaining momentum and Dell/EMC fighting for HDS/NetApp supremacy in the NAS market. See Mark's predictions.

Arun Taneja, Sr. Analyst, Enterprise Storage Group takes us through 2003 with his predictions on how the storage industry and storage consumer will benefit from consolidation. He sees player buyouts and for storage vendors, it will be get going or get out. See Arun's predictions.

The SNIA IP Storage Forum Governing Board predicts that almost every operating system will have support for iSCSI by the end of 2003. Take a look at this article to find out what the IP Storage Forum has to say about FCIP and IFCP as well. See SNIA's predictions.

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